“Wax?—­ah!—­pardon me:”  and the doctor returned hastily to his work.  But Rose looked up and said, “I wonder Jacintha does not come; it is certainly past the hour;” and she pried into the room as if she expected to see Jacintha on the road.  But she saw in fact very little of anything, for the spacious room was impenetrable to her eye; midway from the candle to the distant door its twilight deepened, and all became shapeless and sombre.  The prospect ended sharp and black, as in those out-o’-door closets imagined and painted by a certain great painter, whose Nature comes to a full stop as soon as he has no further commercial need of her, instead of melting by fine expanse and exquisite gradation into genuine distance, as nature does in Claude and in nature.  To reverse the picture, if you stood at the door you looked across forty feet of black, and the little corner seemed on fire, and the fair heads about the candle shone like the St. Cecilias and Madonnas in an antique stained-glass window.

At last the door opened, and another candle fired Jacintha’s comely peasant face in the doorway.  She put down her candle outside the door, and started as crow flies for the other light.  After glowing a moment in the doorway she dived into the shadow and emerged into light again close to the table with napkins on her arm.  She removed the work-box reverentially, the doctor’s manuscript unceremoniously, and proceeded to lay a cloth:  in which operation she looked at Rose a point-blank glance of admiration:  then she placed the napkins; and in this process she again cast a strange look of interest upon Rose.  The young lady noticed it this time, and looked inquiringly at her in return, half expecting some communication; but Jacintha lowered her eyes and bustled about the table.  Then Rose spoke to her with a sort of instinct of curiosity, on the chance of drawing her out.

“Supper is late to-night, is it not, Jacintha?”

“Yes, mademoiselle; I have had more cooking than usual,” and with this she delivered another point-blank look as before, and dived into the palpable obscure, and came to light in the doorway.

Her return was anxiously expected; for, if the truth must be told, they were very hungry.  So rigorous was the economy in this decayed but honorable house that the wax candles burned to-day in the oratory had scrimped their dinner, unsubstantial as it was wont to be.  Think of that, you in fustian jackets who grumble after meat.  The door opened, Jacintha reappeared in the light of her candle a moment with a tray in both hands, and, approaching, was lost to view; but a strange and fragrant smell heralded her.  All their eyes turned with curiosity towards the unwonted odor, and Jacintha dawned with three roast partridges on a dish.

They were wonder-struck, and looked from the birds to her in mute surprise, that was not diminished by a certain cynical indifference she put on.  She avoided their eyes, and forcibly excluded from her face everything that could imply she did not serve up partridges to this family every night of her life.